Barrow's Range
right|thumb|300px|Barrow's Range right|thumb|300px|Barrow's Ascent Barrow's Range is the site of a steep hill that spikes upward from the nearby plains, affording those at its summit an unparalleled view of the Wildlands around it for many miles. Around the year 300 BTA, this view was put to strategic use and a watchtower was erected on the summit by a group of Sunkissed paladins, to train and to keep close watch on the Sanguine Forest and other dangerous regions. The ascent is steep, narrow, and rocky, and what path there is stops a hundred feet before reaching the summit, at a secluded dell that affords an excellent view of the lands west of the hill. The summit itself was long ringed with the ruins of an ancient defensive wall, presenting what would have been a sheer rock-face to would-be attackers. History Although often besieged and assaulted, the watchtower on Barrow's Height survived for several centuries, not least because it was an outpost manned by some of the most zealous Sunkissed paladins known to the Wildlands. Their constant use of the Light in the tower's defense, paired with their fierce devotion to the cause they had adopted - to keep a watch on some of the darkest aspects of the Wildlands - contributed to the myth that the lands were repellent to the Shadow. The defense was costly in the extreme. In the year 40 BTA, a coordinated assault from mages and Wildlings of the Sanguine Forest killed the last of the watchtower's defenders, blasting its crown to rubble and putting gaping holes in its outer wall. Not one of the nearly three hundred paladins survived - but so ferocious was their last stand, and so blazing the presence of Light in their fall, that the tower remained untouched and unlooted after battle's end. Local nomads took to calling the site 'Barrow's Range', as it had become the burial mound for its last defenders. Some said their spirits lingered on to keep the hilltop from falling into Shadow's claws, for whatever disturbances might occur in the plains around it, no evil or harm ever befell those daring enough to take shelter in the fallen tower's shadow. The tower itself, badly damaged and abandoned, crumbled as the centuries passed into near-complete ruin, as did the outer wall, and the fortifications rotted away. Present Day In the year 628 ATA, the wanderer Taran found the remains of the original path from the dell to the height's summit, and the ruins there. Working with a few willing friends, the bard reconstructed the outer wall and the access to the summit, and began using the stones and ruins of the original tower to create a new flametower on the site as a personal residence, and a beacon that would be visible, at need, from the Tempest Spire and the northern Aegis wall. For those that know its name, the structure on the summit is now called Moonsong Tower. ---- category:Chiaroscuro Lore category:Book of the White Tree